Chicken Meat Loaf

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you got to have a what-the-hell attitude”.
Julia Child

This was the inspirational quote from Julia Child that made me overcome my fear of trying out new recipes. Growing up, I saw my mom struggling with her meat loaves. Sometimes they would get burned at the bottom, sometimes they would come out undercooked and scatter in a pile of mince rather than come out as a smooth loaf. Every time she was about to flip a meatloaf out of the pan I stood behind her, completely terror struck whether it would be a success this time or not. I kind of inherited her fear of a perfect meatloaf till I stumbled upon this quote from Julia Child. Then I took a deep breath, told myself , ” what can be the worst possible scenario ? The loaf won’t be edible. So what ? Maybe I’ll learn to make a perfect one out of this failure.”
Then that happy miracle happened, I managed to make a perfectly moist and well cooked loaf, that came out of pan intact. Voila ! Fear ? What fear ? 😉

Tip: To check the flavouring of the meat loaf mix, I fried a teaspoon full in the pan first and tasted it to readjust the quantity of salt, pepper and sauces.
Always taste your food while cooking, the people you are cooking for are not guinea pigs .

The milk soaked bread slices keep the loaf from shrinking and getting hard.

For Chicken Meat Loaf :

1 kg chicken mince
2 bread slices, dipped in milk
2 eggs
1 medium onion,chopped
2 green chilli peppers, chopped
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder(optional)
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 inch piece ginger, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds
3 tablespoons tomato ketchup
2 tablespoons mustard sauce
1+1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt or to taste

For Glaze :

Mix 2 tablespoons tomato ketchup, 1 tablespoon mustard sauce, 1table spoon chilli sauce and 1 table spoon honey.

This Is What You Do :

Heat the oven at 160degrees C. In a food processor blend all the ingredients of chicken meat loaf. Grease 2 loaf pans (8×4), spoon the mixture into the pans. Bake uncovered for an hour or till the juices run clear. After first 10 minutes of baking take out the pans and pour the glaze over the surface of the loaves, chuck them back into the oven. When they are done, leave them for ten minutes before you slice them. This will give you very moist and smooth textured meat loaves with 8 slices per loaf. Serve with Vegetarian Scotch Eggs on side (recipe is on the blog), or with your favourite sauce. These make excellent patties for burgers and sandwiches.